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The GQA: David Rees

The man behind the satirical comic Get Your War On tells us about his new book, How to Sharpen Pencils, nerd cruises, and why you shouldn't sharpen those pencils without pants

If you were cognizant during the War on Terror, you saw David Rees’s comic strip Get Your War On. Rees used generic clip art of cubicle-dwellers talking to each other over the phone, peppered with expletive-laden and bizarre exchanges like "Oh yeah! Operation: Enduring Our Freedom is in the motherfucking house!" to tap into the despair, encroaching paranoia, and increasingly surreal atmosphere of life after 9/11.

While Rees is still heavily invested in political satire—he created the hilarious anti-SOPA site called Get Your Censor On and is back contributing to Rolling Stone with strips about the primary—another topic has grabbed Rees by the tweedy lapels and won’t let go. Pencil sharpening. Artisanal pencil sharpening, no less, and he’s written the book on it.

How to Sharpen Pencils is an exhaustive reference book for anyone interested in sharpening pencils in any manner, with a variety of tools, and in almost any circumstance. It’s also an increasingly bizarre journey into the persona of the author, with subchapters like "Anxiety of the Unknown: The Unsharpened Pencil" and "The Importance of Maintaining a Healthy Attitude Towards One’s Practice in the Face of Broken Pencil Points, Physical Exhaustion, Societal Disapproval, Sexual Impotence, and Financial Ruin." It’s unclassifiable yet wholly enjoyable even if the word pencil eventually starts to resemble glossolalia after the first few chapters. It stands to follow that since Rees is absolutely earnest about How to Sharpen Pencils.

John Hodgman wrote a wonderful introduction to the book, and with it, you can order a pencil sharpened by Rees himself for a mere $15 from his website. You will receive its shavings and a "certificate of sharpening." It comes in a protective tube with a cap. You can use it or you can keep it as a good luck charm. Just be careful, because it will be very sharp, much like Rees himself.

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GQ: You are very serious about artisanal pencil sharpening.

** David Rees: **Uh huh.

GQ: No joke. You are serious.

** David Rees: **Yeah. I try to do a good job of it. It’s a real business, you know? And a lot of times people think it’s a joke, but even though it has a whimsical element to it, if a client pays me, I’m going to sharpen a pencil for them and send it to them... They get their shavings, they get their pencil in a display tube. It’s a thing. It’s a real thing. It’s a real business. And I’m not just cranking them out in electric pencil sharpeners. I’m really doing it, and I’ve learned a lot about pencil sharpening techniques in the last two years, because I started the business about two years ago. So yeah, I am serious about it.

GQ: How did you stumble upon this as a business?

** David Rees: **Well, what happened was I used to be a political cartoonist and I quit when Bush left office, when Obama was sworn in, and then I kind of just fumbled and stumbled for a long time figuring out what to do next. In the spring of 2010, I didn’t have any money so I went and worked for the census as a door-knocker and we had staff training to learn how to do all that. And on the first day of staff training they gave us these bags that had all our supplies in them, like the forms we were going to need and our training manuals and paperclips and all this shit, and in the bag there was some pencils and a little pencil sharpener because you fill out the forms in pencil.

So the census trainer was like, "Okay, guys. Everyone needs to take a couple minutes and sharpen their pencils," and it was this really weird, nostalgic, whimsical thing that we all were doing first thing in the morning. It’s staff training. We don’t know each other, we don’t know what the job is going to be like, and it’s like, "Everybody sharpen their pencils." And it was kind of really funny and surreal, but while I was doing it, it’s like, God, this is really satisfying. I haven’t done this in a long time. I never use pencils, usually... So for me, it had been a while since I’d sharpened a pencil, and I had so much fun doing it, I thought, "I want to get paid to do this. Forget about working for the census. I’m going to figure out a way to sharpen pencils." And so that’s when I decided I will literally start a pencil-sharpening business. And I did.

GQ: I have not sharpened an actual pencil in a while. I will admit I have sharpened an eyeliner pencil. Not the same, obviously.

** David Rees: **A woman I was dating who was in the beauty industry, she told me that.

GQ: What’s your general client base?

** David Rees: **When I was getting ready to publish this book, I wanted to open the book with customer testimonials from people who had pencils sharpened by me, so I wrote to everybody who had ordered a pencil through my website, and I got back a really cool variety of professionals. A lot of writers and artists, parents who buy lucky pencils for their kids before they take an exam. I sharpened like 25 pencils for school kids before they took the state regions. Musicians, journalists. I got a nice note from a journalist in Canada who said he liked the pencil I sharpened for him because when it’s really cold you can’t take notes in pen. You need a pencil. And then other people who just like the pencil as a symbol of, you know, just thinking clearly and doing a good job and appreciating simple things.

For a lot of people, myself included, I think a yellow #2 pencil is pretty nostalgic, because I used them all the time growing up but I don’t have occasion to use them much these days. So I think for some people—some people use the pencils, but then other people just keep them as tokens or artifacts or even little pieces of art. You know what I mean? So I think my clients are kind of a wide variety of people.

GQ: But weren’t they first attracted to your pencils or heard about them through your stand-up and your presence with Get Your War On and My Filing Technique and all that?

** David Rees: **There’s no overlap between my comics and this project. They feel really separate to me. Because the comics, especially Get Your War On, it’s pretty angry, political, and it had bad language and stuff. That’s almost kind of like supposed to be deliberately alienating to certain people, whereas this is for everybody, I feel... People always think that it’s a huge goof on hipster culture. It’s not really. It’s just kind of a fun project that I feel like anybody should like. That’s why it’s so crazy that sometimes when I read the comments sections to articles that have been written about this project, some people are so mad. It makes them so enraged... It’s hard to explain, but it’s kind of surprising. It really, really rubs some people the wrong way, you know? It’s kind of like Miranda July or something. You know how some people fucking hate Miranda July? It’s kind of like that.

GQ: I’ve mentioned it to people, and they’re like, "Really? This sounds like a Portlandia sketch."

** David Rees: **Yeah, I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that. But it’s a real thing! I’ve sharpened like, getting up on 475 [pencils]. I’ve made money doing this. It’s not just like a silly—it’s not like I built the website and then didn’t build up the business. I did it, and I invested in my tools, and I learned a shitload about pencils. And the thing that made me feel good is I did an event in Williamsburg a couple months ago, and [there was] a lot of media beforehand, like, "This is the ultimate Williamsburg hipster gone too far. Sharpening pencils." So I’m reading from my book and it’s fun and there’s jokes and stuff. Then when I asked if people had any questions, it was like 20 minutes of serious questions about pencils and the history of pencils and why are pencils like this, and I have to say, I was very pleased with myself. I could answer every single question because I did my research. I learned a lot about pencils. So it’s not a goof. It’s a real thing.

GQ: I guess because of your onstage persona—very dry, button-down shirts, a sensible sort of guy. It seems like it would be a play on that, so I could kind of see...

** David Rees: **Right, but I’m not a professional comedian. Nobody comes to my comedy shows. That’s just a little hobby. To me, this feels separate from that. I feel like the business only works and is only interesting if I really do it. Do you understand what I mean? I wouldn’t be satisfied if it was just like an online meme. It had to be a real actual pencil-sharpening business, which it is. And obviously, yeah, my personality is usually kind of serious, and there’s humor in the pencil-sharpening book. I wanted it to be a how-to manual but also to be something fun that you could read, and it gets crazier and crazier as it goes along. It has humor in it, but it’s not—I have to just keep telling journalists, it’s not just a joke. I know what I’m doing.

Do you know what the equivalent is? The equivalent is like Amy Sedaris’s books. Because they’re really funny and crazy, but they actually like—the recipes are real recipes, and the crafts are real crafts. And so I feel like her books are an inspiration for me when I was trying to figure out how to do this book. It has to work on both levels. It has to be a fun book that you enjoy reading but also it has to do what it says it does, which is teach you pencil-sharpening techniques.

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GQ: So, um, you seem a little defensive.

** David Rees: **Well, I don’t mean to be defensive, but I do want people to respect my authority in the pencil world now. Because I do know more about pencils than most people now, and I am better at sharpening pencils than most people now. So I don’t want people to think like, "Oh, he’s just this guy. He made this silly website." Yeah, I did that, but also? I can fucking sharpen the shit out a pencil. It’s true. 470 customers and no complaints so far. That’s pretty good. One complaint right now about a guy in Germany who’s wondering where his pencil is, and that’s because I went on a tour to sharpen pencils and I got back up with my orders, but I’m doing it. You know, like, I’m doing it. And I do want people to enjoy this book, and I want them to be like, "Oh, I didn’t know that about pencils" or "Oh, I didn’t know that’s the reason that a pencil is hexagonal instead of rectangular." "Oh, I didn’t know you could sharpen a pencil this way."

** David Rees: **That was the Caribbean cruise I was on, yeah. I only go on one a year, and it’s always JoCo Cruise Crazy.

GQ: Well, how many more cruises do you need, really?

** David Rees: **That’s true.

GQ: I’ve heard wild tales of this cruise.

** David Rees: **Wild?

GQ: Some wild tales.

** David Rees: **I haven’t, and I was on it. Something wild happened? Tell me.

GQ: It just seems like this kind of amazing explosion, I don’t know, I wouldn’t say nerd culture but this sort of hyper-intelligent...

** David Rees: **I will say this. JoCo Cruise Crazy is the one time in my life I’ve ever felt anything like a jock. ’Cause I always think of myself as a nerd, but compared to those people, I’m like fucking, I don’t know what. Those people are nerds.

GQ: Who’s the nerdiest?

** David Rees: **Who’s the nerdiest? I mean, you can’t... you can’t rank something like that. It’s just... I don’t know who the nerdiest is. There’s different types of nerds on that boat. I mean, they’re all crazy about Jonathan Coulton. A lot of them are really into games and sci-fi and Dr. Who and all this stuff. It’s interesting because I feel like they’re all super nice and super smart, but it’s such a foreign culture for me that it’s like really cool to just hang out with them and learn about what they’re into... I feel like an outsider, but it’s also really fun because everybody’s so chill. It’s nice. Like, they’re really friendly, you know? They’ll tell you about all the games that they’re playing in their game room, like all these weird board games and whatnot. Yeah, it’s fun... And also, you’re on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, and it’s completely surreal and crazy, you know? It’s like, all you can eat salad bars. It’s good.

GQ: I’ve never been on a cruise. They seem scary.

** David Rees: **This is the thing. This was the great irony of it was we all agreed after the first one, I did not think I was going to enjoy the cruise, but I get it. It’s like, you’re on a floating hotel where food is free 24 hours a day. You can appreciate it ironically and sincerely simultaneously. Kind of like my pencil-sharpening business, you know? It works—whatever level you approach it at, it’s there ready for you, like, "Oh, heyyy! I’m a cruise ship! What do you want? What do you say?!" So you can walk around and be like, "Oh, this is so disgusting, all this excess," and then wait until it’s three in the morning and you’re completely drunk and you’re like, "I want a cheeseburger now!" And they’ll bring it to you for free. It’s crazy.

GQ: I think if I went on a cruise, I’d feel like the only weirdo there, whereas...

** David Rees: **Right, which is the other great thing for these people is, for them, they don’t even care about the performers. It’s really just about them having the fellowship of these people who might live in a town where there’s no one else like them who shares their interests or they might work in an office where they’re the only person who dresses up in weird Dr. Who T-shirts and then they get on this floating little neighborhood where everybody knows each other’s references. Everybody’s into the same stuff. That’s a really powerful experience for those people.

GQ: It’s like the moving Internet. It’s like BoingBoing but on a cruise ship.

** David Rees: **That’s a good analogy. So that is really cool. Even if you’re not really of that world, it’s really cool to see that fellowship and that community.

GQ: So, how’s the Hudson Valley treating you?

** David Rees: **When I decided to start my pencil-sharpening business, it was very much informed by the vibe of the Hudson Valley, and I knew very quickly that if mine was to be a pencil-sharpening business, the way to get paid would be, people would pay a premium to have me sharpen a pencil, and if they’re going to have me sharpen a pencil, it has to be, like, artisanal. Because in the Hudson Valley, we have that word everywhere. My friends own a wine shop called Artisan Wine Shop. There’s a bakery called Artisan Bakery. And there’s all of these farmers’ markets and super expensive pickles and super expensive lamb burgers, and so I was kind of like, if I’m going to be able to charge money to sharpen a pencil, like over 50 cents, I’m going to have to bill it as artisanal. So that came out of the Hudson River Valley. And once I made that decision, that kind of informed how the photographs would look and how the website would look, and then from that, how the book would look, and so, to me, this project is a real product of my time in the Hudson River Valley over the last couple of years.

GQ: And are you ready to return from the Hudson Valley?

** David Rees: **Yeah, I’m going to, because the other thing about this book is it’s kind of like this coded memoir of my marriage falling apart, because I moved up to the Hudson River Valley with my ex about six years ago. We were living in Brooklyn. We moved up there and bought a house, because we wanted a house and a garden and all that stuff, and then we got separated a couple years ago, and that’s when I kind of ran out of money and hit bottom and started working for the census and started this pencil-sharpening business.

It’s like just as Get Your War On was kind of my memoir of being alive during the War on Terror and George Bush and stuff, this is kind of like my memoir of like just being in this weird place in my life, so I feel like I’m going to move back down to the city because it’s just more of my friends live in the city, you know? And also, I lived there for six years. That’s a long time.

GQ: It’s really interesting that you said this is a coded memoir because there are so many memoirs, and they’re always just kind of like, "And this happened to me..." I think this is a much more interesting way to obliquely...

** David Rees: **I think obliquely is the right word, because it’s not like [pause] I would say that personal stuff is there if you’re looking for it, but again, first and foremost, the book functions as a how-to manual. Then it has some funny jokes in it for laughs. Then also... I’ve had journalists tell me this, who’ve read it, who don’t know me, they say, "This book has a weird, sad undercurrent to it." And there is this kind of elegiac quality to it. I hope. Because I like things that do a lot of different things all at the same time, and so hopefully some people will get that. But it doesn’t matter if they don’t, you know? It’s like, we’ll see. I just sent a copy of my ex, and I told her, there’s like—’cause we’re friendly—and I said, there’s a couple references to, you know, us ending our marriage. Nothing, no details about anything, like fights or whatever, so I wonder if she will pick up on any of that, or if she’ll think it’s interesting. We’ll see.

GQ: If you’re planning to move back to the city, what would be the creative project that will come out of that? More comics?

** David Rees: **I started doing comics again for Rolling Stone. I’m going to do them through the election, and that’s been fun, getting back into that, because so much crazy stuff is going on. And then I have other ideas for projects—you know, I’m constantly pitching TV shows and movies and stuff, like so many other [people] who live in the city. But the pencil-sharpening thing, I think I will end the business at some point in the next couple of years and just be done with it. I like to do projects for a set amount of time and stop them and move onto something else. So I feel like I’ll do that with pencil-sharpening after a while. Once the book gets out there and people learn how to do it on their own, you know, then I’ll be able to shutter my business and move on to my next project.

GQ: Especially if it acted as—maybe not an emotional catharsis but a project to keep busy...

** David Rees: **Right, and that’s the thing. I associate this project with a very specific period of my life, which I think is coming to a close, so it will be interesting to see—once the divorce is finalized and once I’m living back in the city, will I still feel this emotional connection to sharpening pencils and that kind of obsessive quality? Maybe not. Maybe I’ll learn about some other project that I’ll want to do. Does that make sense?

GQ: Let’s talk about Lollygaggin’.

** David Rees: **I like hosting it. I like performing like that. It’s taken me a long time to figure out how I want to talk to people onstage, but I feel like I’m getting the hang of it, which is just literally talking to people and not preparing at all, anything. It’s really fun.

GQ: How is that fun?!

** David Rees: **It’s just interesting. It’s like, just talk about whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re looking at... I just want to be this nice man standing onstage talking to people. It sounds really weird.

GQ: No, it sounds nice. The world needs a little bit more of that. Just a little bit more of niceness in the world. You’re the kind of person—and this is such a blanket generalization, and just from what little I’ve seen of you onstage—there’s this thing about you where you’re maybe not jacked into the Internet all the time and maybe you go off and whittle by the fire.

** David Rees: **The sad fact of the matter is I’m on the Internet all the time and I should be whittling more, which is one of the appeals of the pencil-sharpening thing, like, I’m going to do something that’s really real and physical in the real world and not abstract digital stuff in my head or—I like the idea of using the Internet to send people pencils, because pencils [are] the opposite of the Internet. But I’m glad I come across as this super-authentic craftsman onstage.

GQ: You have a—I don’t want to say propriety about you, but like, this is the way to do things. Sort of old-fashioned but good, the way to be, but in a good-hearted kind of way.

** David Rees: **I’ll take that. Yeah. I want to have some semblance of human dignity when I’m onstage, at least at Lollygaggin’... Talking about my personal life onstage, I’ve realized, is not—I’m not one of those comics who can do that. I can allude to it—maybe it’s the same with the book. I can allude to it, but I don’t want to be a confessional performer... I don’t like it when performers rag on their ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend in absentia. If they’re not there, it just feels rude... I’m never going to say anything personal about myself on stage. That’s my new goal. Which is a shame because my personal life is fucking amazing. I’m just kidding.

GQ: Have you, in fact, ever successfully sharpened a pencil with your mind as shown in your book?

** David Rees: **Yes. The proof is hidden within the text of the book. I will not elaborate.

GQ: What is your preferred wine that tastes like pencils, among those listed in your index?